Something to Live Fortag:blog.lib.umn.edu,2010-02-02:/learning/somethingtolivefor//117772010-02-03T21:06:23ZMovable Type Enterprise 4.31-enVoices From Other Roomstag:blog.lib.umn.edu,2008:/learning/somethingtolivefornew//11777.2166132008-08-16T12:47:26Z2010-02-03T21:06:23ZThe life course has changed dramatically during the past century. The UN calls this sea change an "agequake!" The reality is that in about 25 years we're going to be experiencing an international transformation where the number of older persons in the world will exceed the number of young for the first time in history. This "agequake" will shake up our social customs and our economies.learninglife
by Richard Leider

The life course has changed dramatically during the past century. The UN calls this sea change an "agequake!" The reality is that in about 25 years we're going to be experiencing an international transformation where the number of older persons in the world will exceed the number of young for the first time in history. This "agequake" will shake up our social customs and our economies.

While this is going on largely unnoticed, many of us are coming to terms with the realities of our own lives at midlife and beyond. We are noticing the inner voices-- "voices from other rooms," as writer Truman Capote aptly called them--that are trying to awaken us to the positive possibilities in the second half of life. Just 30 years ago, the standard view of aging was confined to D words: decline, disease and dependency. But "the times they are a changing." My observations and experiences have shown that people are now using or yearning for the R words: renewal, redirection and reinvention.

In our book, Something To Live For: Finding your Way in the Second Half of Life, David Shapiro and I focus on people who are pioneers on the frontiers of reinventing the reality of aging. These pioneers are showing us both the possibilities and the challenges of a new period of midlife. This new period is a 20-year space between midlife and real old age. It's a time when we're no longer young, but won't be elderly for some time.

The biggest challenge presented by this new stage lies in listening to a new "positive aging" story-- listening to the "voices from other rooms." The process of reinvention in midlife involves a yearning to become more wholehearted and authentic than we, perhaps, ever allowed ourselves to be before. These voices from other rooms speak even more loudly to us now. Some of us attempt to silence the voices by filling the room in which we live with distractions and endless busyness to drown them out. New technology encourages us to be available 24/7 via laptops, e-mails, PDA's, and Blackberries before, during, and after work, on weekends, and during vacations. For more and more of us being connected never truly ends. We're always "on." So what suffers? Reflection. In particular, our spirit. By midlife, the constant running has caused us to become fugitives from ourselves.

Such a a silencing strategy rarely works, for if the voices are not heard and acknowledged, at some point we become exhausted, even burned out. The unheard voices or unlived lives carry the potential to destroy our happiness and health in the second half. So we ought to welcome those voices, scary though they may be. We must realize that the liberation that our reinventions will set into motion is less to be feared than to be welcomed, because it frees our creative potential for new vitality. It allows us the space to find new purpose and passion inside ourselves. In contrast to the conventional views of older adults, it opens us "up" to learn about alternative models of positive aging.

In December 2007, I had the privilege of speaking to the First National Positive Aging Conference in St. Petersburg, Florida. Sponsored by AARP and other organizations, it brought together several hundred professionals and researchers to explore new models for aging well. Like many baby boomers, the attendees were increasingly rejecting the conventional story of retirement, which has meant not working. With the longevity revolution and subsequent agequakes, conventional retirement is simply less relevant. The presenters on positive aging often redefined retirement as a graduation or a commencement to something new and different--and that includes new ways to work.

Those of us engaged in second half of life programming and research are learning about the plethora of different options available after the age of 50. You can learn more about these options by attending the Second Annual Positive Aging Conference, November 12, 2008, at the University of Minnesota. Sponsored by the Center for Spirituality and Healing you can discover more information: www.csh.umn.edu

In addition to many people living much longer, some have begun to transform the story and process of aging itself. What does it mean to be old today? How can we reinvent ourselves for the second half? How can we continue to produce the income and financial security needed to sustain us while we are in the process of reinvention?

Richard Leider

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When Are We in the Second Half?tag:blog.lib.umn.edu,2008:/learning/somethingtolivefornew//11777.2166122008-08-07T12:01:56Z2010-02-03T21:06:23ZOften, I begin speeches by asking, "How many of you are in the second half of life?" The question is usually met with laughter followed by the immediate response, "When does the second half begin?" So, when does it begin?learninglife
by Richard Leider

Often, I begin speeches by asking, "How many of you are in the second half of life?" The question is usually met with laughter followed by the immediate response, "When does the second half begin?" So, when does it begin?

Midway through our lives, many of us find ourselves living as if our fundamental growth is behind us. We have, perhaps, accepted our society's dated view of adulthood--that the person we have become at midlife is done becoming.

Wrong. Grown ups grow too.

Sometimes, mysteriously, we enter what the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung called "the second half of life." Jung wrote:

"Wholly unprepared, we embark upon the second half of life. . .
we take the step into the afternoon of life;
worse still we take the step with the false assumption
that our truths and ideals will serve us as before.
But we cannot live in the afternoon of life
according to life's morning--
for what was great in the morning
will be little at evening, and
what in the morning was true
will at evening have become a lie."

How do we grow in the second half? What exactly is growth? Does it happen to everyone?

We cannon tell if we have entered the "afternoon of life" by counting the number of candles on our birthday cake. We do not enter the second half just because we reach a magical age. To know where we are in our life's journey, we must learn to look inside. When we look within, we often discover that the second half is a new quest with new questions like:

* My passion is draining away. I'm losing my edge. Where do I find the spark?

* I chose my life's work years ago and brushed aside certain "gifts" that I had. Why are they coming back demanding to be expressed?

* I feel like I look old. I cannot hide the signs of aging anymore. Why does it bother me so much?

* It's been years since I questioned my beliefs. Why are the questions about God, Spirit and faith coming up again?

* I yearn for new friends--people I can go deeper with. Where can I find them?

Based on my coaching clients and on interviews I have conducted with a variety of people, I am convinced that a second half quest is an existential necessity. It is, however, hard to name and discuss. "Midlife crisis" doesn't quite get it. It begins in part of us that's hard to discuss because it does not show up on x-rays nor can it be measured in a laboratory. It is invisible.

This poem by Rumi captures the essence of the second half quest:

"Little by little, wean yourself.
This is the gist of what I have to say.
From an embryo, whose nourishment comes in the blood,
move to an infant drinking milk,
to a child on solid food,
to a searcher after wisdom,
to a hunter of more invisible game."

The book, SOMETHING TO LIVE FOR, was written by and for hunters of more "invisible game." It was written for those of us who are daring to confront the existential necessity of renewing and reinventing their lives in midlife and beyond. It's a guide for navigating the invisible second half territory which has no maps.

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Who Do You Want To Be When You Grow Old?tag:blog.lib.umn.edu,2008:/learning/somethingtolivefornew//11777.2166112008-07-31T12:18:26Z2010-02-03T21:06:23ZNo lives are the same. They begin differently, evolve differently and end differently. Every one of us is an experiment of one.learninglife
By Richard Leider

No lives are the same. They begin differently, evolve differently and end differently. Every one of us is an experiment of one.

The result is that the story of our lives is simply like no other. Yet there are some universal themes.

In the book, SOMETHING TO LIVE FOR, we share (pp 21-22) a provocative glimpse of growing older from the movie "About Schmidt" starring Jack Nicholson. The movie begins with Warren Schmidt, a 66-year-old VP in the Actuary Department of Woodmen insurance Company in Omaha, Nebraska, waiting in his office and watching the clock until his career is officially over at 5:00 PM.

As the reality of retirement sinks in, Warren doesn't know what to do with his life. Retirement slowly begins to resemble a prison sentence. While watching TV at home, he is engaged by an ad to help a needy child in Africa. He signs up to sponsor a six-year-old orphan in a Tanzanian village. He sends a monthly check for $22 along with personal letters to Ndugu, a child who cannot read or write.

Throughout the movie, he ponders: What kind of difference have I made? What in the world is better because of me?

The movie ends as Schmidt receives a letter from an African nun who writes that Ndugu thinks of him daily and has drawn a picture--a stick figure child holding the hand of his benefactor. Schmidt sobs and the movie ends.

Has he learned anything? Have we?

What really matters in the second half of life is to live a life of both"saving and savoring the world." We have choices in midlife and beyond, regardless of our circumstances, to make a difference both in the world and within ourselves.

Take a few moments to ponder these questions:

1. I've always wanted to have enough time to enjoy___________?
2. I've always wanted to have enough time to help____________?
3. How can I both "savor and save the world"________________?

The second half of life can be a remarkable time for increasing self-understanding and deepening our spiritual awareness. To grasp this opportunity, however, requires some personal pondering. Through films like " Schmidt", and in countless other works of art and entertainment that raise similar issues, the eternal question of life's meaning is surfaced and resurfaced. Ponder this quote from E. B. White:

"If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy.
If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem.
But I arise in the morning, torn between a desire to save
the world and a desire to savor the world.
That makes it hard to plan the day."

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Coming up on this blogtag:blog.lib.umn.edu,2008:/learning/somethingtolivefornew//11777.2166102008-05-05T12:26:27Z2010-02-03T21:06:23ZWelcome to Beyond the Book, the program that connects you with outstanding authors, U of M faculty, and community experts for live and online conversations about nonfiction books that grab our attention and stay with us. Discussion. Each Beyond the...learninglife
Welcome to Beyond the Book, the program that connects you with outstanding authors, U of M faculty, and community experts for live and online conversations about nonfiction books that grab our attention and stay with us.

Discussion. Each Beyond the Book program begins with a four-, five-, or six-week online discussion in which the author/expert will post weekly discussion questions, conversation starters, and personal thoughts. You can read the book before or during the discussion period.

Evening Gathering. Shortly after the online discussion ends, you can choose to attend a special live dinner and discussion hosted by the author/expert. Here, you'll go beyond the book's pages with light, healthy fare, great company, and new insights.

Something to Live For: Finding Your Way in the Second Half of Life
by Richard Leider and David Shapiro

Program Leader: Richard Leider, internationally renewed life coach, author, executive educator, and senior fellow at the U of M’s Center for Spirituality and Healing,

In Something to Live For: Finding Your Way in the Second Half of Life Richard Leider and co-author David Shapiro draw on ancient and contemporary wisdom, as well as modern research, to provide insights into ways of thinking and being that can help us find meaning and purpose in the second half of life.

Free online discussion with Richard opens on July 31, 2008, and continues through August 21, 2008.

Live dinner and discussion at 6 p.m. on Thursday, September 4, 2008. Enjoy a delicious light meal at the U of M's beautiful Campus Club.